


In the Republic of Negative Capability

by fearoflying



Series: The Republic of Two [1]
Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Aziraphale Has a Vulva (Good Omens), Aziraphale Loves Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale and Crowley in Love (Good Omens), Aziraphale's Bookshop (Good Omens), Bittersweet, COVID-19, Coronavirus, Crowley Has a Penis (Good Omens), Crowley Loves Aziraphale (Good Omens), Fan Soundtracks, Fluff and Smut, Free Will, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), Lace Panties, M/M, Making Love, Making an Effort (Good Omens), Mixtape, Playlist, Porn with Feelings, Quarantine, Romantic Poetry, Textile Porn, The Ineffable Plan (Good Omens), True Love, Wish Fulfillment, free spiritual beings, mention of other genital configurations, metaphysical smut, shelter in place
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-07
Updated: 2020-04-19
Packaged: 2021-03-01 18:41:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23521753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fearoflying/pseuds/fearoflying
Summary: I've found it hard to read things during this pandemic, because it seems like we're in a new world I don't understand and everything feels like a document from an ancient civilization.Then I found Zwergenmaedchen's tender'Love in the Time of Corona,'and received Triedunture's quarantine-themed update to their *actually* flammable'Tempt You Toward the Flood,' and I finally had a creative idea for the first time in a month. This is a gift for them, and also for equestrianstatue, whose story'Your Mirror'continues to blow my mind, and from which I stole the idea that Aziraphale likes it when Crowley laughs at him.Herewith, the newly-free beings of love Aziraphale and Crowley navigate a Soho in quarantine, do good, feel weird, reminisce about the great plagues of history, and then have sex that might be slightly over the top.Be advised, the breaks cleanly in half: chapter 1 is fluff, chapter 2 is smut. There is now a multimedia appendix. Skip what you don't want, skip to what you're into.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Series: The Republic of Two [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1797064
Comments: 21
Kudos: 106





	1. Downstairs

**Author's Note:**

  * For [equestrianstatue](https://archiveofourown.org/users/equestrianstatue/gifts), [triedunture](https://archiveofourown.org/users/triedunture/gifts), [Zwergenmaedchen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zwergenmaedchen/gifts).



> I was _sorely_ tempted to call this story 'Ode to Fanny,' but I refrained because I am a grownup. Here's John Keats on the concept of Negative Capability:
> 
> _several things dovetailed in my mind, & at once it struck me, what quality went to form a Man of Achievement especially in Literature & which Shakespeare possessed so enormously – I mean Negative Capability, that is when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, Mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact & reason – _
> 
> As things were heating up, I came within sight of potential gender essentialism without intending to. In the spirit of Negative Capability, I want to ask readers not to assume that I'm saying P in V is more perfect sex, or that vulvas must represent the divine feminine, etc. They're infinitely mutable, divine, sexless beings with a lot of options to enjoy. And I guess I just wanted to write an ode to...the fanny. There I said it. 
> 
> I would love to hear how this strikes you. The dopamine hits from kudos and comments go much farther during social distancing. Stay safe, stay well, stay indoors, friends.

After the events that they had miraculously survived together, the demon and the angel fell into a quiet happiness. But time, as it passed, was run through with uncertainty. Was this really how things would be now? Was it up to them to choose how to live? It was the virus that finally announced to Crowley and Aziraphale that they were on their own. No communications, no assignments, no meddling demons or scolding angels appeared to tell them what their jobs were, or what this was all about. 

In the first days Aziraphale maintained that it was certainly downstairs business, while Crowley patiently reminded him of poor Job, the smitings, the locusts, the flood, the crusades, until Aziraphale shushed him with a look of embarrassed consternation. If it had been clearly the project of one HQ or the other, they might have adopted, or even flouted, their historical roles. In the absence of any such intelligence, they made their debut as a Republic of Two. Whoever’s plan this was or was not, _their_ side abhored suffering. 

They stepped onto the stage cautiously: how many people could they heal before they attracted the wrong kind of attention? To uphold a good example they only left the bookshop once a day for a walk, donning masks to fit in as they discretely broke fevers, cleared lungs, stocked refrigerators and inconvenienced landlords (Crowley only). Aziraphale wanted to walk by the tense, staggered line outside the NHS Walk-in Center, but Crowley wouldn’t let him cross the street. 

“Why on earth won’t you let me go to them, Crowley? I’m not going to make them sick, I’m going to _heal_ them!”

“They don’t know that. Do it from over here.”

“Oh, all right!”

Crowley kept a light hand on his elbow as Aziraphale huffed, healed, then disinfected all the Center’s surfaces and multiplied their supplies for good measure.

Back in the bookshop, days passed slowly. Aziraphale had bouts of energy, dusting, sorting and skimming through books, but then he’d deflate, not quite able to lose himself in stories from a world that seemed abruptly unfamiliar. In the spirit of the moment, Crowley tried his hand at computer viruses, causing the lender Wonga to mail 50,000 checks to its borrowers, and scrambling BrightHouse’s debt records beyond repair. But the computer screen bothered his eyes, and when he thought of all the people who’d shortly be fired, he wasn’t convinced he’d done more good than harm. 

Their wine cellar was deep and infinitely replenished, but somehow a drink meant less when there was no savored supper for it to follow. No Ritz, no charming new this or lovely old that. Neither of them needed to eat, strictly speaking, but the interruption of this, their oldest and most beloved ritual, was like a blow to the roof tree. And without supper or wine, no Efforts were being made. While it could be said that the quarantine was unrelenting intimacy, they hadn’t been _intimate_ in weeks. The mood could only be called melancholy. 

***

A grey morning finds them in the same positions they’d assumed the night before. Crowley surfaces from a doze in the wingback chair he’d pulled up to the window and scans the empty street before burying his face in his elbow once more. Aziraphale has spent the night alternately reading and grooming a battered folio of _The Odes of Keats and Shelley_ , hunching further by the hour until he can smell the book’s decayed binding, not just the open jar of binding glue sitting by his teacup. He reaches for the tea and shudders, miracling it warm before he arches his spine and cranes his neck. The loud pops, or perhaps the whiff of miracle, cause Crowley to stir again, and he peers at his companion over the back of his seat. 

“Alright, Angel?”

“Ah, good morning my dear. Yes, I’m all right. I suppose it just occurred to me that I’d lost track of time. It’s Tuesday, isn’t it?”

“Hmm.” Crowley disappears back into the chair and the upholstery sighs. 

“I only think… it’s a bit human, isn’t it? Counting the days, feeling the time pass as if we were wasting it?”

“Speak for yourself,” Crowley scoffs, but he slides to his feet and crosses the room amenably. 

“I used to read Keats to remember how mortality must feel, all that hot panic and cold dread, the bittersweetness of love that ends.” Aziraphale’s eyes find Crowleys’ ruefully. 

“And I _had_ always thought of those lights going out one after another as tragedies, big or small, but all part of —pardon the expression— a river of light. That taken on the scale of the river, human death is not a tragedy at all, but a part…”

“Of the ineffable plan, eh?” Crowley’s tone is sharp, but his hand is gentle as it squeezes Aziraphale’s arm. Aziraphale looks acutely uncomfortable.

“Death has often seemed a bit…excessive, if I’m honest. But they were always so confident upstairs,” His voice is shrinking. “And now it feels… Oh, it feels like the river’s just stopped. Just frozen, and whether they die or not, everyone’s life has reached a kind of…end.”

Crowley wraps an arm around Aziraphale’s soft sweatered shoulders and pulls him under his chin. 

“It’s not the end, Angel. We’ve seen this all before.”

“It feels different somehow, this time.”

“Naaah,” Crowley’s breath ruffles Aziraphale’s hair, “remember the Plague of Justinian? That was your lot, and you still thought the world was ending.”

“Well the world seemed much smaller then. And nobody knew about germs.”

“And the Black Death? Not a single human in the streets for months at a time.”

“You’re right, it was an eternity like that in Venice, just the wailing, and the sound of doctors’ heels.”

“Some doctors.”

“Quite.”

“And when the Plague came here to London.”

“How could I forget? That was truly the foulest of downstairs business.”

“They called it ‘restructuring.’ You wept when they closed the Globe.”

“I don’t remember that.”

“You wept every time. And you must have healed Shakespeare every week for a year.”

“You kept telling me not to.”

“Well. I’m glad you did.”

“I tried to warn him off of visitors, but he was a _very_ social man.” Crowley rolls his eyes fondly, pulls Aziraphale a little closer.

“And you were very social with him, as I recall,” Crowley can feel the angel blushing, “in your lovely, bawdy form….”

“Well, it wouldn’t have done for him to recognize me. And if I hadn’t called, he might have…he would have sought the company of others! And then he might have gone the way of poor Thomas Nashe….” His voice is rising.

“Relax, Angel. It was pleasure. You’re allowed.” Aziraphale turns his head and blinks up at Crowley. 

“You know, Crowley, that’s quite true.”

“It is now.” Two smiles are tugging at two pairs of lips, which are not very far apart. 

“But there was something about that time, something in the air…”

“Well, plague.”

Aziraphale represses an exasperated noise. “No, not that, my dear. What I mean to say is, in the face of that evil threat, people seemed to know —for a brief moment— how precious their lives are. And how precious their loves are.”

“I think we know that now as well.” Crowley’s voice is a low hush.

 _“We_ do. It’s early yet, I suppose, but I’m not certain. It feels so different to me.”

“Well, you know, Aziraphale, it’s your first plague as a free being. It might just feel different because it _is_ different. And you don’t have to be certain. About anything.”

Aziraphale takes this in and turns it over in his mind a few times. He is radiating small waves of anxiety. Crowley, who had been entirely relieved by his rupture from Hell, tries to comfort the angel as empathetically as he’s able. The embrace lasts some time. He slides his hands under the biscuit-colored cardigan and into the back of Aziraphale’s waistband.

“You’re right, of course,” Aziraphale’s voice is muffled by Crowley’s shoulder, “I was so certain about everything then. It was frankly very nice to know exactly what I was supposed to be doing. And those little stories I would tell to make it all square up…” 

Crowley grins indulgently at this use of the past tense.

“Well. It’s all just between you, me, and the Almighty now, isn’t it, Crowley?”

“Hmm… some things are just between you and me though, wouldn’t you say?” It’s spoken like innuendo, but it gives them both pause. 

“I’m honestly not sure. But I think at this point She must not mind. And I know that _I_ no longer care.” The sudden spark of defiance in Aziraphale’s eyes makes Crowley gulp down a flood of feeling. Weeks of subdued angel have caused him to wilt slightly, like a plant kept too far from the window. Now he grows toward the sun, and almost unconsciously makes a spectacular Effort in the process. 

“Crowley!” Aziraphale sounds as delighted as he does scandalized.

“Mm. Scuze me, Angel,” mumbles Crowley as his Effort begins to stir.

“Oh my dear, not at all, not at all. I think you’re quite right. Shall I do the same?”

Crowley nuzzles his ear, pets his sides, and seems to be on the verge of saying something, but the silence stretches on. Finally Aziraphale nudges, a bit more softly:

“Perhaps you could tell me what I might do that you would enjoy….”

Crowley is burying his face in Aziraphale’s hair so it’s a little hard to hear, but he finally ekes out the better part of a sentence:

“Maybe you could do…the other one?”

Aziraphale’s grin is instant and broad. 

“Oh, with pleasure, my love. Look at you, still thinking about my days as a bawdy wench. Shall I be…” and he makes a sweeping gesture that suggests abundant hair, ample bosom. Crowley looks utterly smitten, but shakes his head. 

“Be yourself…with a quim.”

“Yes,” Aziraphale says with quiet satisfaction, “of course. Shall I wear anything special?”

Crowley is about to shake his head no when he pauses. 

“You still have those… the lacy ones?”

“Of course, you know I do, darling. They’re upstairs. Shall we? But first…” 

There is a special pleasure that in all of history may only be known to these two beings. That is the pleasure of looking your lover in the eye as they manifest the sexual organs with which you will shortly be conversing. Conversing in the sense of intercourse; language has never come up shorter than in describing Aziraphale’s expression as theory becomes practice between his legs. Like the spreading of wings, like the cessation of time; it wasn’t, now it is. The truth of sex flicks across his face, and Crowley is there to take it in. It is probably Crowley’s favorite pleasure. If he thought about the past much, it might remind him of Eve’s face, then Adam’s, as the bittersweet taste of knowledge hit their tongues. As it is, he follows Aziraphale up the narrow staircase with a cheeky grin.


	2. Upstairs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aziraphale and Crowley go upstairs.

The bedroom is a kind of crow’s nest that sits on the center of the bookshop’s roof, hidden from the street. It is a secret architectural anomaly with leaded glass on all sides. Here the daylight is improved from the gloom of street level. Crowley and Aziraphale spend irregular, pleasurable time here, together and alone. Now Crowley is kneeling on the floor before Aziraphale, loosening his belt, unfastening his trousers. 

If the first principle of their two-being republic is ‘we abhor suffering,’ the second is almost certainly ‘there is no such thing as a frivolous miracle.’ Therefor, as Crowley slides cream-colored worsted wool slacks down Aziraphale’s sumptuous thighs he is delighted but not surprised that Aziraphale is already wearing ‘the lacy ones.’ 

They are, like everything he owns, antique and immaculately cared for. The alencon lace has yellowed slightly with age, but the crepe de chine is milky white, and so, so soft on Crowley’s face. Handmade before elastic, the garment is fastened by a wide silk ribbon that ties in the back. There is a matching chemise that Aziraphale loves to wear when he’s slipping into bed to read —and he looks ravishing in it— but after one too many miracle repairs of the delicate straps he has stopped wearing it to make love. He divests himself of his sweater, shirt, and vest, then sinks his fingers into Crowley’s thick scarlet hair and cradles his head against his body. Crowley undoes Aziraphale’s sock garters, then his hands are skating up the backs of his powerful legs, playing at the lace hems that fall just to the crease of his buttocks. Crowley’s shaky breath, through silk, is hot on hot flesh. 

If someone asked Crowley why he’d requested Aziraphale’s quim this morning, and in a world where Crowley might answer such a nosy question, he might put it like this: Aziraphale with a cock is formidable, hedonistic. But with the other, he is also insatiable. For a demon whose newly clarified purpose in life is pleasing an angel, and who has a sudden superabundance of spare time, what better than an angel who can be infinitely pleased?

Gold slitted eyes peer up at the angel as long, nimble fingers follow the lacy hem of his knickers to his own hot seam. Only someone who will live forever could move his hand this slowly and gently. Only someone who has lived forever could endure it. One fingertip travels the length of Aziraphale’s plump labia, never trespassing inside. There is no other movement in the room as this finger travels again, desperately slowly, along the concealing curls of softest hair. All breath ceases as Crowley continues to draw this tender line. 

Finally, if he won’t go in search of moisture, moisture comes seeking him. Aziraphale makes a silent sound of relief as Crowley accepts the invitation and slips inside his lips. His finger skims across the broad side of the angel’s clit with agonizing delicacy and persistance until the angel _must_ come, leaning his hands on Crowley’s shoulders and shuddering. A prelude.

Crowley keeps lightly cupping Aziraphale’s sex as he stands and kisses him. Already Aziraphale’s mouth is lust-pliant, and his quim gushes slightly into Crowley’s hand as another inaudible sound of pleasure escapes him. His usually sharp eyes are hazy and heavy-lidded as Crowley pulls away with some difficulty, turns him around, and presses him facedown to the eiderdown quilt. 

Again assuming that Crowley would answer such a prying question, he might also mention that this quim of Aziraphale’s is… well. Nothing is lovelier. Now, as Crowley’s eyes drag down Aziraphale’s smooth, full form draped over the edge of the bed —his delicate profile visible where his cheek is pillowed on his arms, his waist cinched by the broad bow of white silk, and his blushing buttocks now amply exposed under loose folds of lace— he catches a first glimpse of the lips with which his fingers are already acquainted. Even against the white silk, Aziraphale’s downy hair is shocking in its whiteness. It’s easy to nudge the knickers’ inseam to one side with a finger, and now Crowley can see a little ruffle of pink, glistening and swollen with arousal, between comeslick curls. His mouth floods, and he drops again to his knees.

He wants to pull the garment, rend it, to bury his face in the wet cleft beneath, but his fingers obediently untie its ribbon and slide it gently down Aziraphale’s luscious cheeks, his lavish hips, with minimal help from the comfy angel. He performs a miraculous dry-cleaning on the slightly soggy fabric, then folds it with practiced care and sets it on the bureau behind him. Aziraphale sighs in approval and anticipation, then spreads his thighs and —there are no other words for it— gets a wiggle on. It’s quite lewd. Crowley’s cock surges in his snug trousers. He ignores it; that’s an old part of his pleasure. He spreads Aziraphale’s rosy cheeks, revealing the tight pink bud of his arsehole, the vivid petal-like complexity below, and looks his fill. 

“Fuck, Angel,” he mutters.

Only when Aziraphale squeaks with polite impatience does he take a deep breath and fervently apply himself.

Aziraphale is no blushing virgin (well, he is _blushing_ ), but for him sex had usually been a little hush-hush: Heaven has a notable disregard for privacy. After a long lifetime of silent orgasms, it is hard for Aziraphale not to worry who might hear him. Freedom takes practice. But knowing how good Crowley’s curses and groans make _him_ feel, he applies himself. With his face safely buried in a pillow he begins to translate each ardent stroke, sweep, and suckle into a quiet sound. This is a new part of his pleasure. At first he is hesitant, but Crowley has a trained ear, chases after whimpers with his tongue til he is playing Aziraphale like an instrument. Aziraphale surrenders again to Crowley’s cosmically unhurried relentlessness, and comes bucking and moaning. 

They rest in this scandalous pose for some time, Crowley’s face pressing against Aziraphale’s slick cheek and thigh, Aziraphale still bent over the bed and boneless. Both are half-out of their flushed and winded human bodies, feeling the pure, clean air that love creates move out in great waves from their little crow’s nest in Soho. Eventually Crowley rouses himself, coaxes Aziraphale up fully onto the bed, and undresses the human way. He pulls his t-shirt off and shimmies out of his denims and pants, tossing it all in a heap. Aziraphale doesn’t even see him do it, but tsks anyhow. 

“I’ll pick em up, promise. But first…” he noses along the insides of Aziraphale’s legs, tickled by soft golden hairs. He breathes deeply at the apex, nips a buttock with gentle, sharp teeth, and continues up until his slender body drapes the whole length of Aziraphale. His stiff cock slips between the angel’s thighs, nudging at his swollen labia. They breathe the same air here, faces pressed together over Aziraphale’s left shoulder, as Crowley begins a tiny rocking motion that sends shivers through them both. Aziraphale tries to catch him, grip him with his thighs, but they are so slick that Crowley simply slides deeper, causing them both to groan. 

“Let me turn over, darling. Enough of your wily temptations.” Crowley chuckles, rises.

Now if someone were to ask Crowley why he’d requested Aziraphale’s quim this morning, and in a world where Crowley might answer such a cheeky question, one thing he certainly would never say —aloud— is something like the following: Crowley wants. He landed from his Fall in the depth of desire. Sometimes he wants to take Aziraphale’s cock down his throat as he comes by his own hand. Sometimes he wants Aziraphale to fill Crowley’s cunt with fingers and tongue til he cries out blasphemously. Other times he wants the angel’s arsehole, or the angel to fuck his, or some beautiful mishmash of the above. But a deeper, quieter, most constant want is this: to return to harmony with the nature of creation. To worship at its altar. And the nature of creation is love. And Aziraphale is a being of love. And when Crowley’s needful cock is embraced by Aziraphale’s perfect quim, when Aziraphale’s arms bind them tight, when their mouths are sealed together, he is as close to the center of the heart of the world as he has been since…well, since before. And the beauty of this new arrangement, in their Republic of Two, is that he doesn’t have to say. Aziraphale knows. And he wants it too. 

Aziraphale rolls onto his back and spreads his legs, runs his hands down his own chest, his own belly, glides his fingers through his own wetness, then reaches for Crowley with a shameless smile. Crowley hastens to be in Aziraphale’s hands. His cock is straining for release, pearls of fluid marking a path across the bed. Aziraphale fondles him, cradles the head against his slit, then coaxes him inside. They’re panting together. 

“Oh Crowley,” coos Aziraphale when they’ve reached their shared depth. Crowley manages to blush on top of his already high color at the intimacy of the angel’s voice. Then they are moving together, Crowley’s whiplike body filling and pushing Aziraphale toward another crest of pleasure. A bead of sweat shakes loose from a lock of scarlet hair and spatters Aziraphale’s cheek. Crowley is mouthing faint, incantatory words with each exhaled thrust. It sure sounds like ‘angel please,’ but it doesn’t matter. The angel is already giving him what he’s asking for. He could as easily say thank you.

Crowley doesn’t have to answer any impertinent questions, because Aziraphale knows what he needs as well as what he wants. And he knows that when Crowley worships at the altar of his perfect parts, Crowley is praying to a force that lives sleeping inside Aziraphale. That once Aziraphale has been teased, and pleased, and spoiled, and satisfied, his lust will roar up like a wave of infinite strength. Crowley’s silent prayer is to drown in it. 

And so the angel clutches him inside and comes once more, and the next moment Crowley is flat on his back. The smile on his face is one of perfect surrender. The wave moves over him. Aziraphale takes his pleasure again and again from Crowley’s glorying body. When Crowley finally, finally permits himself to come, Aziraphale comes again too in perfect sympathy, then crawls up Crowley’s body to press his quim to Crowley’s face. Crowley is laughing and crying and licking as Aziraphale floods him with love, wipes the tears from his cheeks, and cries out at the top of his lungs. It’s dusk now, and all the lights go on at once for blocks around. No one could say why, but in hearts across the neighborhood there’s a sudden sense of how precious this fleeting life is, how close we must hold our loves. 

The angel pulls the quilt over them and kisses the demon’s sweet, tired lips. He waves his hand at the oil lamp on the table and their crow’s nest starts to glow like a faint beacon. Crowley’s handsome face is lit in profile, and Aziraphale sighs with contentment. Then he remembers with a start.

“Oh, Crowley!”

“Mmph?”

“We didn’t go on our walk! We were going to walk by the hospitals today.”

“Do it from here, Angel.” 

“It’s not the same. I can’t be at all specific in my miracles from here. Besides, we haven’t had our exercise today!”

“You sure about that, Angel?” Crowley is laughing at him, which Aziraphale quite enjoys. 

“Well, I suppose we have exerted ourselves a little…” He’s laughing too. “But wouldn’t it be nice to take an evening stroll? It feels… I don’t know. It feels like a lovely night.”

“Alright, okay. But can it wait an hour? Pretty comfortable just now.”

“Of course, my love.” 

Crowley’s golden eyes drop shut, but the smile remains. Aziraphale reaches for a well-worn paperback edition of the folio downstairs, and finds his place again.

_Ah! dearest love, sweet home of all my fears,  
And hopes, and joys, and panting miseries, —  
To-night, if I may guess, thy beauty wears  
A smile of such delight,  
As brilliant and as bright,  
As when with ravished, aching, vassal eyes,  
Lost in soft amaze,  
I gaze, I gaze!  
Who now, with greedy looks, eats up my feast?  
What stare outfaces now my silver moon!  
Ah! keep that hand unravished at the least;  
Let, let, the amorous burn —  
But pr’ythee, do not turn  
The current of your heart from me so soon.  
O! save, in charity,  
The quickest pulse for me.  
Save it for me, sweet love! though music breathe  
Voluptuous visions into the warm air;  
Though swimming through the dance’s dangerous wreath,  
Be like an April day,  
Smiling and cold and gay,  
A temperate lilly, temperate as fair;  
Then, Heaven! there will be  
A warmer June for me._

-John Keats, “Ode To Fanny”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was sorely tempted to call this story 'Ode to Fanny,' but I refrained because I am a grownup. Here's John Keats on the concept of Negative Capability:
> 
> _several things dovetailed in my mind, & at once it struck me, what quality went to form a Man of Achievement especially in Literature & which Shakespeare possessed so enormously – I mean Negative Capability, that is when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, Mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact & reason – _
> 
> As things were heating up, I came within sight of potential gender essentialism without intending to. In the spirit of Negative Capability, I want to ask readers not to assume that I'm saying P in V is more perfect sex, or that vulvas must represent the divine feminine, etc. They're infinitely mutable, divine, sexless beings with a lot of options to enjoy. And I guess I just wanted to write an ode to...the fanny. There I said it.
> 
> I would love to hear how this strikes you. The dopamine hits from kudos and comments go much farther during social distancing. Stay safe, stay well, stay indoors, friends.


	3. Appendix: Soundtrack, and the Lingerie

Ok, here are two multimedia things that might give more pleasure to the reading experience.

First is the playlist I made while I was writing. At home I'm listening to the album versions but I tried to find really good live versions of everything I could. If you only listen to one thing below, make it Jesca Hoop's _The Coming_ , which could also be titled _The Ballad of Aziraphale_ (but if you watch 2, maybe check out Christine & the Queens bc the dancing is so effing amazing):

Tom Waits-- ["God's Away On Business"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9mhsW5aWJM)

Adam Ant-- ["Day I Met God"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EfK1d36T-Yo)

Concrete Blonde-- ["God is a Bullet"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNZpkimAZSI)

Nick Cave-- ["God is in the House"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKAnD3Yxue8)

2Pac-- ["Only God Can Judge Me"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymBSBuXjbaE)

Tears for Fears-- ["(Love Is) God's Mistake"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KIkFo_cc4pw)

U2-- ["In God's Country"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o241QDFDJIE)

Christine and the Queens-- ["Doesn't Matter"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekz7ZnH6nlo)

Wye Oak-- ["For Prayer"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1MdTmvjbaE)

Massive Attack (w/Tunde Adebimpe)-- ["Pray for Rain"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UKLlLxKuaM)

Blind Willie Johnson-- ["God Moves on the Water"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MylKZba4wa4)

Marianne Faithfull-- ["Dear God Please Help Me "](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPYcolZwkfg)

Gillian Welch-- ["I Made a Lover's Prayer"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6CA2pJm-V4)

Sufjan Stevens-- ["Oh God Where Are You Now? (In Pickerel Lake? Pigeon? Marquette? Mackinaw?)"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdvfGwkp7CM)

Jeff Buckley-- ["New Year's Prayer"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGeXK4xCLyM)

Beach House-- ["Holy Dances"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qULETfk6kEg)

Shearwater-- ["God Made Me"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rPK2IbWbMDQ)

Jesca Hoop-- ["The Coming"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WA1DCtJ7vcg)

Animals of Grace (lyrics: Edna St. Vincent Millay)-- ["God's World"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cADvnf14s4E)

***

And finally, this is what I think Aziraphale is wearing, but in ivory:


End file.
